Man charged as highway shooter

Suspect in firing on Kansas City-area vehicles

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After nearly a month of reports of gunshots being fired at vehicles and more than 100 tips, authorities announced charges Friday against a Kansas City-area man suspected in connection with about a dozen highway shootings that wounded three people.

Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said at a news conference that 27-year-old Mohammed Whitaker, of Grandview, has been charged with 18 felony counts and was being held on $1 million cash bail. Baker said Whitaker, who had been under surveillance by police for about a week before his arrest, was charged with two counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and injuring a person, seven counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and nine counts of armed criminal action.

“This has impacted all of us, each side of State Line, each side of the river,” Baker said. “It’s been something that’s been at the hearts and thoughts of all us since the day this case first broke.”

Police Chief Darryl Forte declined to discuss a possible motive for the shootings, and the probable cause affidavit released Friday also does not address the issue. Baker’s office said it was unclear whether Whitaker had a lawyer.

Whitaker’s mother, Maria Dunn, 55, said she doesn’t believe any of the charges against her son, who she said has always been “happy” and a “good kid.”

“Right now, there’s so many things in my head. ... All I know is that I can’t believe this is happening to him. I just can’t,” Dunn said in a phone interview from her home in Texas.

She said the family lived in central Missouri for a while and that her son attended high school in Huntsville before he moved to Kansas City to attend DeVry University to study computer science.

“Mohammed is a good son, a good kid, and nothing, nothing that they charged him is the truth. He’s a good kid, and I’m proud of him that he’s my son.”

Baker said the public played a key role leading to Whitaker’s arrest by providing more than 100 tips, including some vital information. Among the tips included descriptions of the suspect and his car, his Illinois license plate number, and the discovery of spent shell casings reported by someone looking for a lost cellphone, according to the probable cause statement.

A reward of up to $10,000 was offered for information leading to an arrest. Police haven’t said if anyone will be claiming the reward.